Pornography not just for the fellas as women fess up

Defying the stereotype of the average pornography consumer as a desperate old man in a raincoat is a study that shows significant numbers of women are taking an interest, too.

Women make up about 20 per cent of respondents to an online survey, part of the Federal Government-funded study called Understanding Pornography In Australia.

Head researcher Alan McKee, a senior lecturer in media studies at the University of Queensland, said that although results from the three-year study were far from complete, they gave an indication of the changing image of pornography users.

"Even just 10 years ago the idea of an Australian Women's Forum was considered slightly radical, because the belief was that women weren't really interested in sexualised images," Dr McKee said. "That's fallen away very, very quickly. The younger women who are coming up seem to be much more comfortable about it."

The data collected so far comes from 320 online survey responses. It is anticipated that about 2000 surveys will be collected by the completion of the project at the end of next year.");document.write("

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One-on-one interviews with respondents and content analysis of a wide variety of material will also be carried out to discover who is making pornography and why, who is consuming it and any potential dangers or benefits.

Researcher Catharine Lumby, director of media and communications at Sydney University, said it was hoped the study would provide reliable information on pornography in Australia that would help shape public policy on the topic.

"What we want to do is get really specific about what's in porn and who's consuming it, so we can start asking ethical questions on the basis of what we know, not what we think," she said.

"The amount of porn that's distributed suggests the idea of the porn consumer as deviant doesn't add up, otherwise you'd have to say large numbers of Australians are deviant.

"Clearly more people consume porn than are fans of reality television."

Preliminary results reveal Labor and Green voters slightly outnumber Liberal and National voters as users. About two-thirds said they were of some religious denomination, largely Christian.

And about 90 per cent of people felt pornography had either a positive effect or no effect at all on their attitude towards sexuality.

"So the evidence is overwhelming that porn actually is good for people in terms of sexuality," Dr McKee said. "But

from the women we've spoken to there's still some sense of embarrassment, that porn is a man's thing and really they shouldn't be interested, even though they are."